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TAG FOR “CGI”Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
June 16, 2011 4:15 pm
Canadian artist Eric Bates made Sayonara while studying animation in Japan at the Kyoto University of Art and Design. “This story was inspired by my life in Japan and having to say goodbye myself,” he wrote on his site. “Every part of this animation abstractly relates to my experiences, friends, foods, things I saw, and things I felt over this time.” I love the mix of minimally rendered CG, detailed puppet modelmaking, and hand-drawn animation It’s fun to watch how he put it all together in this video: (Thanks, Tim McCourt) 12 Comments » posted in CGI, Experimental, Shorts, Student, After Effects, Eric Bates, Japan, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Maya, Toonboom 
June 13, 2011 1:00 pm
Ya’ know, I was just thinking the other day that we don’t feature enough industrial and medical animation here on Cartoon Brew. Then I found this nice little demonstration film depicting a dramatic bite from a bed bug. The animation was created at Meditech Communications by Joel Erkkinen and Brian Michaelin using Maya2012, with compositing in After Effects. 11 Comments » posted in CGI, Meditech
June 8, 2011 6:00 am
Shane Acker (“9″) is back with a new sci-fi fantasy, now in production at Gnomon Studios – part of L.A.’s Gnomon School of Visual Effects where Acker is on the faculty. Here’s the teaser for Plus Minus: UPDATE: In breaking Shane Acker news, it’s just been announced that Acker will direct a live action Thomas The Tank Engine feature film. (Thanks, Justin James via Twitch) 8 Comments » posted in CGI, Shane Acker
June 5, 2011 9:53 pm
The story of Kung Fu Panda 2’s second weekend is much like its first: a success overseas and an underperformer in the US. Around the world, the film took in an estimated $40 million in its second frame, including $1.3 million in the United Arab Emirates, the highest-grossing animated opening in that country. Its overseas gross now totals $125M. In the United States, it is the weakest performing DreamWorks movie in recent years. The film had a 49.9% drop in its second weekend, which is steep by DreamWorks standards. According to Box Office Mojo, audiences still avoided the 3-D version of Kung Fu Panda 2 in the second week, with only 44% of viewers choosing the enhanced imagery. Its $23.9 million weekend earnings pushed its domestic total to $100.4 million. For perspective, here are the second weekend drops and grosses for DreamWorks features in the previous three years: (2010) Shrek Forever After: -38.9% ($43.3M) 34 Comments » posted in 3-D, CGI, Feature Film, dreamworks, DreamWorks Animation, Kung Fu Panda 2
May 31, 2011 12:52 pm
Shares of DreamWorks Animation dropped today to their lowest point in two years, and equally significant, shares of 3D hardware firm Real D plummeted over 12% (as of this writing). The stock market was reacting to the weak domestic debut of Kung Fu Panda 2. The film’s three-day weekend gross of $47.8 million compared unfavorably to the original Kung Fu Panda’s $60.2 million opening in 2008. The decline in attendance was even more pronounced: 6.1 million viewers for the sequel versus 8.4 million viewers for the original, or a loss of over one-third of the audience. Only 45% of the audience opted to pay the higher 3-D ticket premium. According to Box Office Mojo: “A 3D share in the 60 percent range would have been healthy. That’s what Shrek Forever After had last May with fewer 3D venues.” The news is especially troubling for DreamWorks chief Jeffrey Katzenberg who has touted 3-D as the most revolutionary advance in filmmaking since sound and color and whose studio now makes films exclusively in 3-D. This time around, the majority of viewers chose to forgo the revolution to save a few dollars. Kung Fu Panda 2 ended up with $68 million over the five-day holiday period, which looks especially weak compared to the four-day $61 million Memorial Day gross of Madagascar back in 2005. The bright spot: Kung Fu Panda 2 posted strong openings around the world, banking $57 million in its opening weekend from eleven countries, including powerful starts in China and Russia, and opening weekend records for an animated feature in South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and India. 109 Comments » posted in 3-D, CGI, Feature Film, dreamworks, Kung Fu Panda 2, Real D
May 28, 2011 1:50 pm
Visual effects house Digital Domain is building a $40 million, 120,000-square foot studio in Port St. Lucie, Florida. The plan: expand beyond service work for live-action features and create “extremely clean, family films that are memorable, strong, powerful stories.” Since feature animation is quite nearly the most lucrative thing going in Hollywood right now, everybody wants a piece of the action. Digital Domain is moving in the direction of vfx shops like Sony Imageworks and more recently ILM, which released its first original production, Rango, earlier this year. DD has already greenlit an idea for its first feature (what is it?) and hopes to have it in theaters by 2014. The only hitch is that Digital Domain has been talking about creating original content since the mid-1990s. The company tried to launch an IPO a few years back which failed to ignite interest from investors. Now, they’re getting ready to try the IPO again. This time they hope the results will be different. For starters, the state of Florida and the city of Port St. Lucie has awarded them $70 million worth of incentive grants to set up shop down there. Second, they’ve hired Disney animator and Brother Bear co-director Aaron Blaise to helm their first feature, presumably so that he will recreate some of that Brother Bear magic. They’ve also hired the executive producer of Brother Bear, Chuck Williams, who told the TCPalm that, “As Pixar is struggling with sequels and Disney’s struggling to find itself, I think it’s a good time for us to come in with a different point of view with great family films.” Frankly, other studios would kill to struggle as much as Disney/Pixar, which created the top grossing film at the worldwide box office last year, plus another animated feature in the top ten. Plenty more details about DD’s plans in this TCPalm article, including this bit:
According to the article, only 15 of those employees work in its feature animation division. The photo up top is of (l. to r.) Chuck Williams, Aaron Blaise, and Craig Grasso. There’s also a solo photo of Aaron Blaise accompanying the TCPalm piece which has a special surprise that I’ve highlighted below:
I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything, but as a rule of thumb, if you’re launching a new animation studio, it’s a smart idea to make sure that logos of other studios’ animated films aren’t visible in publicity shots. 69 Comments » posted in Business, CGI, Aaron Blaise, Chuck Williams, Digital Domain
May 28, 2011 3:00 am
La Détente, a new short by Bertrand Bey and Pierre Ducos of London’s Not To Scale, has been selected to compete at Annecy 2011.
Sounds good, looks great. It was recently screened at the Cannes film festival and is currently making the rounds at European film festivals. Here’s the trailer: 3 Comments » posted in AskTheExperts, CGI, Shorts, Bertrand Bey, France, Pierre Ducos
May 20, 2011 12:29 pm
One of my favorite student films from a few years back — 2008, to be exact — has finally appeared on-line: Michal Socha’s Chick (Laska) from Poland. The images in this short stay with the viewer long after the film has ended thanks to a combination of stark production design and energetic animation, especially the jaunty dance of the lady, who appears to be a prostitute. The sex scene (safe for work) illustrates the effectiveness of abstracting an idea in animation instead of literally showing it. It may surprise some viewers to learn that the film was made primarily in CG, using 3D Studio Max along with After Effects and Toon Boom. Dig around the film’s official website to see the storyboards and concept art. |
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